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We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

As an avid/. reader for years I'm extremely disappointed in where this site is headed. It is like digg all over again, except/. has been the best source of information and level-headed discussion on the internet long before digg or reddit ever existed. Put simply, for all it's flaws/. is still the only site of its kind and putting through this shoddy redesign is going to kill the site. I have to agree with other users that it almost seems like it is your intention. The only consolation I will have is that the Japanese slashdot.jp will still be around after this site collapses.

I remember reading about how it is illegal in the UK not to decrypt the contents of your computer if ordered to do so. Then as now I still think the best solution is a self-destructing key of some sort that deletes itself without user interaction.

An anonymous reader writes "The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a recommendation to parents that kids under the age of two should be limited in their time watching television and using computers. They say there's 'no such thing' as educational programming for kids that young, and that they benefit much more from real human interaction (PDF). Psychologist Georgene Troseth said, 'We know that some learning can take place from media, but it's a lot lower, and it takes a lot longer.' The article continues: 'Unlike school-age children, infants and toddlers "just have no idea what's going on" no matter how well done a video is, Dr. Troseth said. The new report strongly warns parents against putting a TV in a very young child's room and advises them to be mindful of how much their own use of media is distracting from playtime. In some surveys between 40 and 60 percent of households report having a TV on for much of the day — which distracts both children and adults, research suggests.'"

On OS X 10.7 Firefox is significantly slower than Safari and Chrome. Chrome and Safari are both pretty similar in performance but Safari is hands down the fastest browser on OS X because it is the only one that has complete GPU acceleration (likely due to Apple using hidden API calls). Using Windows on the same machine both Firefox and Chrome seem to run so much faster than their OS X counterparts it is mind boggling.

The best way to read things on an e-ink device is to subscribe to the RSS feeds you want and use Google reader. Hopefully the feeds provide the same content as actually visiting the site and not just a headline.

The strength of Firefox lies in its plugin architecture which is leagues ahead of the competition. Adblock on Firefox is superior to other browsers because it can block dynamic content/video ads. Noscript, Requestpolicy, sharemenot, refcontrol, betterprivacy, certificate patrol, and on and on. These are all addons that I use that either have no alternative in other browsers due to technical limitations or have alternatives that are lacking in functionality. Firefox is also the only major browser left that is 100% open source, most of Chrome is based on Chromium but there is still proprietary code in there and there isn't really a conveniently packaged Chromium version for production use.
There are a lot of things I like about each browser and I rotate browsers frequently but I often find myself relying on Firefox for the plugins it has that are a step above the rest. I am not really a fan of the new number versioning scheme but it does seem like improvements are happening faster than before, which can only be a good thing for the end user.

This is the reason I will never buy a 3DS (until it is cracked, then..maybe) Every previous nintendo handheld was not region locked, I could safely travel anywhere in the world, purchase a game locally and not have to worry about it not working on my DS/GBA/GB. Now suddenly, Nintendo has decided to region lock 3DS games so if I go overseas I can't buy games for my console.

There are several services that have this limit that is a holdover from the days of when most people had dumb phones. Twitter has this, plurk also has this, as does weibo. In Chinese it turns out you can say A LOT in 140 chars so this limit isn't as big a deal I guess, plurk is popular in Taiwan and is really similar. I mostly just peruse social networks and rarely post things myself.